


Hanna's Wedding

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:19:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6937513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the night before Hanna's wedding to Jordan, but when Mona brings a copy of The Devil Wears Prada for them to watch, it causes her to think back to Caleb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanna's Wedding

They’d talked about their weddings back when they first became friends. Hanna’s groom was to be Sean Ackard; Aria’s, Noel Kahn. Emily and Ali had always been secretive about who they had in mind; Hanna now knew that that was because Emily was secretly thinking about Alison at the time. As for Alison, who knew who she had been thinking about? There had been so many guys in her life that no one had known about at the time – Ian Thomas, Ezra Fitz, Board Shorts Hottie. Alison had teased Spencer at the time that Spencer would always be too into her career to marry anyone. Spencer had laughed that off at the time, but Hanna wondered now how she had really felt about that.

They’d talked about the kind of weddings they might have as well; Hanna and Ali both wanted the best of everything, a big wedding, and Spencer said her family would expect her to have the same, but it probably wouldn’t be as showy as Melissa’s. Emily was expected to have some kind of ceremony on the beach while everyone expected Aria to do something quirky to fit with her nature. 

Thinking back on these conversations now made Hanna want to laugh at how differently things had gone to how they had imagined in sixth grade. For one thing, it would be Ashley giving her away, not Tom, who had pitched a fit when he’d found out Hanna had no intention of having Kate in the bridal party and the eventual outcome was that he, Isabel and Kate would not be attending. For another, it had been pretty much an unspoken assumption every time they had had that conversation in the sixth grade that Alison would be everyone’s chief bridesmaid. But when it had come down to it, Hanna had found herself questioning whether she was even going to ask Alison to be bridesmaid at all. After everything that had happened, she couldn’t honestly say she felt as close to Alison now as she did to her other friends. And then there was Mona. In school, they’d talked for hours about planning their double wedding, and now Hanna hadn’t even planned on inviting her until Ashley had bumped into her and given her the date, and Hanna had felt put on the spot. And what about Spencer, with Caleb as her date? Hanna had said she was fine with it at the time, but she wasn’t so sure now that it wasn’t weird, not to mention that Jordan had put on a brave face but later admitted he wasn’t entirely happy about Hanna’s ex being there. Maybe it would have been easier to ditch the whole thing, just she and Jordan on a beach somewhere without her family and friends. But Ashley would have killed her if she’d done that now, after all the planning everyone had done. It would be fine. Spencer, Caleb, Toby, Yvonne, Liam, Ezra, Aria…what did it matter? The day was about her and Jordan, not any of the others.

In the end, she had spent more time with Mona since the bridal shower, and the bridal party was now Mona, Emily, Ali, Aria and Spencer, but without anyone in the role as chief bridesmaid. As for the shower, well, Hanna had decided to arrange a night in on a smaller scale, just the six girls, for the night before the wedding. Mary and Elliot were safely locked up, what could possibly go wrong? Hanna thought.

Until Mona arrived with her copy of The Devil Wears Prada.

“Are you kidding?” Ali asked when Mona produced the DVD.

“What?” Mona asked, innocent expression on her face. “Hanna and I loved this back in tenth grade. The movie and the book. Oh, that’s right, you won’t remember, because you were playing dead.”

“And whose suggestion was that again?” Ali reminded her.

“Guys, let it drop.” Emily intervened. “It’s Hanna’s night, she should pick what we do.”

“Sure, we’ll watch it,” Hanna interjected. “And when Andrea gives Miranda the big fuck you, I’ll think about how I did the same to Claudia.”

Alison and Mona smiled, but a look passed between Aria and Emily that at first Hanna couldn’t identify. As Miranda Priestly demanded the unpublished Harry Potter book, as Andrea delivered The Book, Hanna thought about that for a while, wondered what it meant. Then as Andrea’s boyfriend Nate appeared on screen, and they had the argument about Nate accusing Andy of having become everything she had once ridiculed, suddenly it wasn’t Nate’s voice Hanna heard in her head, but Caleb’s.

“Don’t be a Sybil.” Just some stupid name he’d given her then-boss by mistake, not even particularly related to the movie. But as Hanna watched, she found that it wasn’t the characters she was thinking about, but Caleb and herself, from that moment at the party where he’d advised her not to turn into her boss to that final day where Caleb had said that if she didn’t cancel her business trip and come home, he wouldn’t be there when she got back.

“Actually, you know what? I think I’m kind of tired. Would anyone mind if we called it a night?” Hanna asked, and Spencer agreed so fast that Hanna realised she had obviously made the same connection. This was crazy, it was the night before her wedding, she shouldn’t be thinking about her ex like that. Stupid Mona, picking that particular movie. But if Hanna was honest with herself, she couldn’t really blame her. Hanna should have dealt with these issues a long time ago. She thought she had. Jordan was the one she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with, and after that last failed bridal shower where she’d realised how much she’d been shutting Jordan out of her life, she’d worked on that, spent more time with her friends and family as a couple.

She was marrying Jordan the next day. She had to concentrate on that, and this crap about Caleb was just last minute nerves, nothing to pay any attention to.

 

 

No one had noticed as Caleb left the party. It had been planned as a few old friends getting together for a catchup the night before the wedding, Caleb, Toby and Lucas originally, then Ezra, Mike Montgomery and some friend of his had ended up joining them. Mike’s friend had made some comment about how it was the first bachelor party he’d ever been to without the bachelor, and Mike had awkwardly explained that none of them were really friends with him and he was having his night with his own friends. Mike’s friend had dropped it after that, but Caleb’s heart hadn’t really been in it.

He’d wanted to tell her that it was her he still loved right after they rescued her, that he’d known it as soon as he’d found out that she had come back for him that time rather than going on the business trip, only to find him not there. But when they found her, Jordan had been there, had held out his waiting arms for Hanna to run into them, and Caleb had known it wasn’t the right moment, the time had passed. She was Jordan’s now, she was marrying Jordan, and Caleb would have to let it go. He had Spencer now, they could make it work, he was sure of it, Hanna was part of his past.

He’d tried not to think about it after that, but this wedding, which he was expected to attend as Spencer’s plus one, had brought it all back. He and Spencer had actually called it quits a couple of weeks earlier, but they weren’t telling anyone quite yet, having wanted to get Hanna’s wedding out of the way first. Let this time be about her, they’d still go together to the wedding and let Spencer save face in front of Melissa without having to go alone, having realised they were better as friends after all, and then they’d tell people after that. 

And that comment about the bachelor party, well, it had made him imagine what could have been his own. Toby and Lucas would have been there, probably Luke Matheson, although he may not have included Ezra and Mike. And that conversation about none of them being friends with Jordan, well, Mike’s friend had hit the nail on the head. No one knew the guy. Hanna’s friends had ended up becoming Caleb’s friends too, and he’d been close with her mother. She’d been his best friend as well as his girlfriend, and now what was she? Just someone he’d see at reunions?

He walked blindly, not even realising his steps were taking him towards Hanna’s house until he looked up to find himself on that old familiar street and Hanna herself coming out of the front door.

“Caleb.” Hanna said. “I thought you were with Lucas and the others.”

“I left,” he explained. “I had to.”

“Caleb, don’t. Just don’t. First the movie, now seeing you…I just can’t do this tonight.” She turned and ran back into the house. Caleb wasn’t sure what Hanna meant by the comment about the movie, but he was starting to suspect one thing: she had been thinking about him just as much as he was thinking about her.

 

“Okay, hold still,” Ali said as she applied the hair straighteners to Hanna’s hair, while Aria finished off her make up, Ashley fastened the necklace that was her “something borrowed” around her neck and Emily applied the last coat of nail varnish to her toes.

“Damn it,” Emily muttered. “I think I just smudged this little toe.”

“Don’t worry about it, Em,” Hanna brushed it off. “No one’s gonna see it with my shoes, and Caleb isn’t going to care anyway.”

Emily and Ali looked at each other. “Caleb?” Ali asked. “Don’t you mean Jordan?”

“Dammit!” Hanna exclaimed. “I did. Just forget I said that.”

Mona glanced around, noticed that Spencer was nowhere nearby, and said “We could forget it, but I’m not so sure that you should. I saw the look on your face when that scene in the movie reminded you of you and him, and I heard you outside last night.” This last was said in a whisper. “If you’re not sure about marrying Jordan you don’t have to go through with it. Don’t ask me how I know, but Spencer’s not with Caleb any more. If Caleb’s the one who makes you happy, that’s who you have to be with.”

Ashley, not having heard the whole thing but having some suspicion of what was going on, came over and said “You don’t have to do this, Hanna, if you’re not sure it’s what you want. Is there anything you want to tell me? We can talk alone if you like?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Hanna brushed it off. “Just last minute jitters. I’m fine.”

 

They were all there as she walked down the aisle, Jordan waiting for her, Ted waiting to perform the ceremony, Ashley leading her by the arm, Spencer, Emily, Ali, Aria and Mona behind her. And in the pews there they were, Toby and his girlfriend, Ezra, Lucas, Mike and his friend, the Hastings family, the Montgomerys. All of them with their eyes on Hanna as she walked down the aisle.

And then as she turned around, she saw Caleb, stood at the doorway, making his way slowly inside.

“If it’s what you want, you know what you have to do.” Mona whispered, and Ali, by her side, nodded. “Go.”

Hanna ran.


End file.
